Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Thirty years after defeating the Galactic Empire, Han Solo and his allies face a new threat from the evil Kylo Ren and his army of Stormtroopers.
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53 films that influenced Star Wars: The Force Awakens
What critics say influenced Star Wars: The Force Awakens
After Rey blasts off from Jakku (that's inevitable -- it's Star Wars ), the journey becomes a mirror-universe version of its source material, staging pivotal moments so as to invoke Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back , and Return of the Jedi , and peppering the dialogue with references galore (hey, a trash compactor joke!).
Abrams’ first turn at the franchise controls combines the freshness of 1977’s “A New Hope” with the darkness and intensity of 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back.” “The Force Awakens” opens 30 years after Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) defeated Darth Vader and restored balance to the Force in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.”
Abrams and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan ( The Empire Strikes Back ) also bring back a sense of prior history and continuity, invoked in old Ben Kenobi’s references to “a more civilized age” and Han Solo’s glib remarks about the strange things he’d seen flying from one end of the galaxy to the other.
Working from a script he co-wrote with Lawrence Kasdan (who also wrote the best film in the series, “The Empire Strikes Back”) and “Toy Story 3” and “Little Miss Sunshine” writer Michael Arndt, Abrams beautifully combined the elements of the first three films that we loved so much with a fresh sense of purpose.
The backdrops even echo the original trilogy as the story zips from a desert planet, as seen in "A New Hope", to forest and ice worlds, like those of "Return of the Jedi" and "The Empire Strikes Back", stopping in on a bustling bar filled with weird and wonderful aliens just like in the very first film.
The screenplay (by Abrams, Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back ) oscillates between extending the masthead narrative through rearranging plot variables – chasing, being chased, sneaking into places, escaping etc – and tapping into a rich vein of nostalgia.
Beautifully shot by Dan Mindel ( John Carter ), featuring an amazing array of practical and digital effects that are continually eye-popping, the most important technical facet remains John Williams’ ( Jurassic Park , Superman ) instantly recognizable score, the veteran Oscar-winning composer delivering deft orchestrations and memorable themes that fit the on-screen action flawlessly.
Rick Carter, the man behind such glorious production designs as Jurassic Park , Death Becomes Her and Avatar blends his production into the original trilogy effectively, modernizing its trappings carefully without diverting so stupendously as to make things seem too radically different.
How they’re paired with today’s digital effects (Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata, for one) should send shivers down the spines of anyone who grew up marveling at the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park or the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day .
The earliest reviews of this are all glowing, as indeed they were for this past summer’s “Jurassic Park” clone — “Jurassic World.”
And I recall seeing Jaws (1975) and All the President’s Men (1976), which were both quite a big deal.
Despite Steven Spielberg having ushered in the modern day blockbuster two years earlier with "Jaws," few saw the enormity of "Star Wars" coming.
When the first trilogy began back in the late 70s, I was old enough to be wedded to the darker, moodier sci-fi of Solaris , Silent Running and Soylent Green , and young enough to believe that gave me the right to dismiss this latterday Buck Rogers nonsense out of hand.
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Filming Jakku’s wide, sweeping Lawrence of Arabia-style vistas, cinematographer Dan Mindel achieves a stunning look that hearkens back to the original trilogy.
Elsewhere, the sand dune landscapes have a touch of Lawrence of Arabia majesty, vindicating Abrams’s long-standing dedication to shooting on film rather than digital, cinematographer Dan Mindel augmenting the 35mm stock with some lush 65mm Imax footage.
My dad had worshiped Guinness in Kind Hearts and Coronets, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Bridge Over the River Kwai.
“Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens” is the film that J.J. Abrams was put on Earth to make, as evidenced by the " Star Wars " echoes in his hit series "Lost,” and the way he kept trying to turn " Star Trek " into "Star Wars."
But Abrams, who oversaw the disparate families of the new Star Trek universe, Super 8 , TV’s Fringe, Lost and even Felicity , has nodded at Star Wars so much in his career that nothing in The Force Awakens feels derivative.
Some of the beats are also far too dependent on extreme coincidence – a flaw reminiscent of Abrams’ Star Trek reboot – and have the effect of thinning the plot.
After all, he brought "Star Trek" back to life in the amazingly entertaining 2009 film (that mixed homage, sci-fi, action and comedy in an uber-satisfying way).
But Abrams can’t pull off a Triumph of the Will extravaganza, whether with his sub–Albert Speer architecture or Domhnall Gleeson’s glazed face and frozen rabble-rousing as General Hux.
Serkis is fine but not galvanizing as Snoke; Domhnall Gleeson has a few impressive snit fits as a petulant First Order general, with one public speech that’s shot to look very “Triumph of the Will”; and Gwendoline Christie is seen only in full armor as Finn’s ex-superior, Capt.
The trailer revealed hoards of Stormtroopers appearing to re-enact Triumph Of The Will against a snow-capped mountain backdrop: these are the villainous, Nazi-like cadre The First Order – essentially the Empire, but even more fascist.
Stylistically, everything is intact here - from the Flash Gordon style screen fades and wipes to the clunk and whirr of that battered hardware.
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What else is the famous “ 1984 ” Apple commercial—released the year after we said goodbye to Han, Luke, and Leia at the triumphant Ewok hoedown that ends The Return of the Jedi —but a symbolic re-enactment of the victory of the brave, scrappy individualists against the faceless horde of Stormtroopers?
Like the original could be compared to the likes of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty , this film could be equated to films like Beauty and the Beast and Frozen .